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G.O.P. Filibuster of 2 Obama Picks Sets Up Fight

WASHINGTON — Senate Republicans on Thursday thwarted the confirmation of two of President Obama’s nominees, one to a powerful appeals court and another to a home-lending oversight post, setting up a confrontation with Democrats that could escalate into a larger fight over limiting the filibuster and restrict how far the minority party can go to block a president’s agenda.

In a series of swift back-to-back votes, Republicans first blocked the nomination of Representative Melvin Watt, Democrat of North Carolina, to become the director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency — a rare affront to a sitting member of Congress who has an extensive record of public service.

Next Republicans, who have accused the president of trying to tip the court’s ideological balance in Democrats’ favor, quickly dispensed with the nomination of Patricia Ann Millett to the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. A former government lawyer whose husband serves in the military, she has worked in both Republican and Democratic administrations. The White House chose her as a test of how far Republicans would go to derail a qualified nominee.

Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., a longtime member of the Senate and a fierce protector of its arcane institutions, said he believed the rejection of the two nominees was grounds to re-examine the filibuster rules, which some senior Senate Democrats have advocated.

“I think it’s time for some common sense on confirmations,” said Mr. Biden, who was in the Capitol to swear in Cory Booker, a Democrat, as New Jersey’s newest senator. He called the loss a “gigantic disappointment.”

The votes, coming barely two weeks after leaders of both parties reached a deal to end the government shutdown uttering hopeful predictions of greater comity and cooperation, snapped the Senate back to its bitter partisan reality.

Republican objections to Ms. Millet had nothing to do with her judicial temperament or political leanings. Instead, Republicans said they wanted to refuse Mr. Obama any more appointments to the appeals court, which is widely recognized as second only to the Supreme Court in importance and often rules on politically significant matters like presidential authority and campaign finance.

“Our Democratic colleagues and the administration’s supporters have been actually pretty candid,” said Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican leader, who pressed his members hard to vote no. “They’ve admitted they want to control the court so it will advance the president’s agenda.”

Another confrontation — on these nominations or others — seems inevitable. Even as Republicans pledged to stop Ms. Millett, two more nominees to the appeals court were working their way through the Senate confirmation pipeline. Robert L. Wilkins, a Federal District Court judge, cleared the Senate Judiciary Committee on Thursday by a 10-8 party-line vote. Cornelia T. L. Pillard, a Georgetown law professor, was already approved by the committee and is awaiting a vote on the Senate floor.

The court is split evenly with four Republican and four Democratic appointees among the judges who regularly hear cases. Among the judges who are semiretired, five are seen as conservative, one as liberal.

There are still three vacancies that Mr. Obama is trying to fill. Republicans are pushing a bill that would eliminate those seats permanently because they argue the court has a light caseload.

That has prompted Democrats to accuse Republicans of trying to change the rules simply because they do not like the president who is picking judges.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the majority leader, implied that he might try to change Senate rules if Republicans did not relent on the nominees, which he said he would bring up for reconsideration very soon. “Something has to change, and I hope we can make the changes necessary through cooperation,” he said, adding that Mr. Watt was the first sitting member of the House of Representatives to be denied confirmation since the Civil War.

Whether Democrats have the stomach for another consuming fight over the filibuster is an open question. Mr. Reid would need 51 of the 55 members of his majority to go along with any changes, and many of them are leery.

Among senators of both parties, there is agreement that a president should be granted deference in picking members of his cabinet and top executive branch positions. But with judges, who are given lifetime terms that extend far beyond a president’s four or eight years in office, sentiments can be different.

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Senator Jeff Merkley, Democrat of Oregon, who favors a change in rules for judges, said that he sensed reluctance among his colleagues to eliminate filibusters against judicial nominees in the event that Democrats found themselves in the minority in the future.

“They’ll say, ‘Those folks are two or four years. They’re not lifetime appointments like judges,’ ” he said. “And so with judges we want to protect and sustain the ability to block,” he said, adding that he did not share that view because any majority can change the rules at any point and render the judicial filibuster obsolete.

“Preserving a filibuster on judicial nominees is not going to protect against judges you disagree with down the line if you’re in the minority,” Mr. Merkley said.

Mr. Reid has taken the Senate to the brink of using what is known as “the nuclear option” to change Senate rules before. Ordinarily it requires two-thirds of the Senate to rewrite the rules, but through a parliamentary loophole, it could potentially be done with a simple 51-vote majority. Until now, he had won concessions from Republicans before pulling the trigger on changing rules that have remained largely the same for a century.

That averseness is exactly what Republicans are counting on. “Things can change,” said Senator Lamar Alexander, Republican of Tennessee. “And I don’t think Democrats want a Senate where Republicans can do anything they want with 51 votes, especially on judicial nominations.”

Jennifer Steinhauer contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on November 1, 2013, on Page A20 of the New York edition with the headline: Republicans’ Blocking of Obama Nominees Could Renew Debate Over Filibuster. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe